Mensa Select® Games
Each year, hundreds of Mensans meet over one weekend to play and rate the year’s newest board games. The top seven games earn Mensa Select distinction and may display the Mensa Select seal on their packaging.
The Mensa Select seal indicates that a game is original in concept, challenging, and well-designed. Additionally, these games are a good value for the price, easy to comprehend and play, and, above all, fun! Look for the Mensa Select seal when purchasing your next game.
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A Place for All My Books
2026 Mensa Select Winner
Manufacturer:
Smirk & Dagger Games
Players: 2-4
Age Range: 13+
A cozy strategy game of gathering, organizing, and admiring a book collection.
Critter Kitchen
2026 Mensa Select Winner
Manufacturer:
Cardboard Alchemy
Players: 2-4
Age Range: 13+
Enter a world of critter chefs and delicious dishes! Gather ingredients, take on foodie challenges, and serve up a seven course meal for a celebrity critic!
Fromage
2026 Mensa Select Winner
Manufacturer:
R2i Games
Players: 2-4
Age Range: 13+
Fromage is a simultaneous worker-placement game where you make, age, and sell cheeses to become the most prestigious cheesemaker in France. Players assign workers to make cheese and gather resources from the board section facing them. Once all workers are placed, the board rotates, aging cheese and revealing a new section. Score Prestige Points by selling cheese and upgrading your creamery.
Galileo Galilei
2026 Mensa Select Winner
Manufacturer:
Capstone Games
Players: 2-4
Age Range: 13+
Galileo Galilei is a new Euro-style game in which you take on the role of an astronomer who will discover new planets, uncover hidden star systems, enhance your telescope, and achieve groundbreaking scientific discoveries amidst the challenging era of obscurantism.
Got Five
2026 Mensa Select Winner
Manufacturer:
Blue Orange Games
Players: 2-4
Age Range: All Ages
Think you can outsmart your opponents without seeing your own numbers? In Got Five!, each player has five hidden tiles on their rack that everyone else can see. On your turn, reveal tiles, ask questions, and gather clues to narrow the possibilities. Are your tiles higher or lower, close together or far apart? The first to correctly declare all five numbers wins -- but guess wrong and you're out.
Things in Rings
2026 Mensa Select Winner
Manufacturer:
Allplay
Players: 2-4
Age Range: 4 to 10
Place the Rings in the center of the table to form a triple Venn diagram. One player is "The Knower," who knows the logic rules for each Ring and facilitates play. Other players start with five object cards. On your turn, place a card in the diagram. If it fits the rules, play again; if not, The Knower moves it and you draw. First to empty their hand wins.
Twinkle Twinkle
2026 Mensa Select Winner
Manufacturer:
Allplay
Players: 2-4
Age Range: 4 to 10
In the tile-laying game Twinkle Twinkle, fill your star chart with clear plastic tiles to connect constellations, build asteroid belts, collect comets, pick up planets, and study them with satellites. Watch out for black holes unless you have the perfect place for them. Each element scores differently. With 10 modular scoring conditions, you can mix and match for 32 setups. Highest score wins.